Racetrack Playa, DVNP
On the
BayAreaHiking list,
Suzanne Courteau
mentioned Eric Rorer's
Washington Post article about a
Desert Survivors hike
she had taken in
Death Valley National Park
last October.
The article mentions "... Racetrack Valley, one of the park's
marquee attractions. The valley gets its name from rocks that
move mysteriously, almost as if they're racing each other across
the dry lake bed on the valley floor. The exact cause of the
movement remains unknown."
This was the topic of an APOD last year (Astronomy Picture Of
the Day). They claim to have a reasonable explanation now.
See ... http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap020410.html
My favorite explanation for the last couple of years has
been this: it rains, and then the few inches of water on
the top of the temporary lake freeze over (the playa is at
almost 4000 feet elevation). Once you have a large sheet of ice
floating on the water, it then lifts the rocks that are embedded
in it, and the wind blows the whole ice floe, rocks and all,
around on the slick, near-frozen mud flat. This explains why
some of the rock trails are parallel, and why the occurrence
is pretty rare.
[The photo here is from
Paula Messina's well-done site, which the APOD story
pointed out.]
11:08:02 PM
Random radio Weblog